Posts Tagged ‘experiences’

DIB

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , ,
20 April 2011
0

Last Saturday was EPIC.  Legend, Apprentice, and I got together for dinner at Din Tai Fung followed by boba at cha for tea.  Sounds pretty normal, right?  I thought so too.

But along the way, our lively conversation led us meandering down a path I never could have anticipated.  We talked about everything from starting a fraternity to winning watches at basketball games to more food, food, and food!  And somewhere in all that talk I decided to start making a list of all those things we had said “hey, we should do that” to.  The list?  Well, to find out, you’re going to have to follow the chronicles of our adventures on a new blog I’m creating.  (More to come when it’s ready.)

Here’s what you should know: we will follow a few simple principles in the pursuit of greatness.  We’ll make each activity a little bit more exciting because everything we do, we do it big!  We’ll live by the motto: “go BIG or go home” and we’ll set the bar high everywhere we go.  It starts with our attitude and shows in our wardrobe.  We’ll dress to impress, even if it’s to grab some fast food.  When you’re the best-dressed in a room, you’ll get noticed.  When there’s three of you having a blast as the best-dressed in the room, well – that should raise your bar, too.

Don’t be fooled, most of the things we do may not sound that amazing to you initially, but we’ll bring the flair and set the standard everywhere we go.  By the end of it all, you’ll be jealous you weren’t there with us.  I’m really excited for our plans and all the fun we’ll have.  Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to chronicle it all for you.  Then who knows, maybe you’ll be inspired to go out and have some fun of your own!

In honor of Doin’ It Big and the conversation about starting a fraternity, we have dubbed ourselves Delta Iota Beta and I am proud to be a brand new DIB.  Let the adventures begin!

Summer!

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , ,
17 April 2011
0

Wow, it’s been so long since we’ve had nice warm days in LA!  The past couple of days have been a real treat, since we pretty much skipped right over the summer thing last year and went straight from a brisk winter to a cool fall.  I think I only remember two days being moderately warm in all of 2010.  I feel like I’m finally coming out of hibernation after a year and a half of chilly weather and boy does it feel good!  It makes me want to actually go outside and do things on my time off rather than hole up in my room on the computer like I’ve been doing.

I’m really excited to start inviting people over for pool parties and maybe even barbecues, if I can figure out how to work the grills we have poolside.  I think I might also consider wandering around the Century City mall every now and then, enjoying the warm evenings as I browse storefronts and munch on Pinkberry’s.  What a relaxing way to spend a Friday night after a full week’s work.  I’m really looking forward to the increase in activity that the higher temperatures will bring.  Also, I haven’t craved frozen yogurt in the longest time, probably because it hasn’t been hot enough to make me want something to cool down with.  I’ll be adding that back into my diet now, for sure!  Nothing like a good old yogurt parfait from Pinkberry’s to satisfy my froyo cravings.

This past week was also the first time I’ve gone to yoga class while it was still light out.  That was pretty amazing for me too – I’m so used to associating class with the darkness of the night, but now it still feels like daytime when I head over.  I love having long days of sunlight.  Thinking of long days, I’m almost nostalgic for the warm summer days of the East Coast and Midwest, where we’d sit on the porch and watch fireflies as we ate watermelon or drank lemonade.  Too bad there are no fireflies here and as of yet no juicy watermelon in the fridge.  I can’t wait to see Panda in Virginia this the summer and recreate some of those great memories of my childhood.  I’d rather have days of thunderstorms and flash floods if it meant I could also have beautifully warm nights.  It’s certainly better than the tepid summer we experienced last year.

Dolphins, the ultimate entertainers

laelene Posted in video blog，Tags: , , , , , ,
16 April 2011
1

They’ve got skill and personality!  Check out some more videos here and here.

dolphins balancing balls from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

dolphin feeding from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

dolphin hula skills from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

Lovely loo

laelene Posted in photo blog，Tags: , ,
15 April 2011
0

Now this was a cool bathroom! Took me awhile to figure out how to flush the toilet though, lol.

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Sony VAIO

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , ,
14 April 2011
0

I got my new laptop yesterday!  Receiving it wasn’t nearly as exciting as I had hoped, since I couldn’t open it immediately and start fiddling with setting it up just the way I like.  It sat in the box for a couple hours by my desk until I took some time before lunch to open it up and start charging it.  Setup was quick and soon I was configuring things to my liking.  I kind of imagined having the packaging and manuals laid out all around me as I sat with it in the middle of the living room (don’t know why).  Instead, it sat next to my work laptop and external monitor and made my desk look like some sort of computing hub.

When I was shopping for laptops, I had wanted one that wouldn’t get hot, but I should have looked for one that wouldn’t be noisy too.  I’m going to have to check with Sony whether this noise level is normal, since it is much louder than I expected a brand new laptop to be.  It certainly wasn’t like this at Best Buy.  It’s not even like I’m making it do all that much work yet either.  We’ll see what they say.

I do enjoy the keyboard more than I thought I would and the backlit feature is nice, though the light peeks through the cracks of the keys and I wish it didn’t do that.  Still, it feels cool that it glows when lighting is low.  The screen is also very nice and I’m glad I didn’t convince myself to get a smaller size.  I have a lot more room to play around with, allowing me to have multiple windows up and in view much easier.  After having an external monitor in addition to my computer monitor at work, I’ve been spoiled and started to get used to having a lot of space to throw up reports and webpages and the like.  This is almost a similar experience.

I had hoped to be a bit more enthusiastic about my new computer, but I’ve been holding myself back from setting everything up until Sony can transfer some of my files and programs.  Once that’s done, I can finally get on with having everything I want on this new device, ready to be tried out.  I can’t wait to take it to the store this weekend (maybe even tomorrow) so I can fully embrace everything it has to offer.  🙂

Sky high

laelene Posted in video blog，Tags: , , , ,
10 April 2011
0

up in the clouds from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

Teamwork

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , ,
08 April 2011
0

Much of my job entails independent work, with a bit of guidance from my supervisor.  With a lot of changes coming to the company as of late, I’ve seen most of my coworkers hopping in and out of meetings and it makes me a bit nostalgic for an opportunity to have meetings as well.  Additionally, Panda has found that he is often attending meetings for his job.  Suddenly I find myself sitting there alone, wishing I had more meetings to participate in.

I don’t get much interaction with my coworkers in terms of sharing ideas for what I’m working on, so it seems I’ve been compensating by engaging them in conversation, period.  That ranges from a random observation to just asking if they’ll be joining everyone for lunch today.  I don’t mean to distract them from their work, but I figure it’s a brief enough encounter that it can be a quick break in the midst of all their work.  Or so I hope.  Perhaps I am just an unwelcome distraction that they can’t bear to ignore or wave away.

I hope that in the future there will be a chance for me to work more in a team environment, exchanging ideas throughout the day with a collaborator.  My supervisor is great, but I feel like I should only go to him after I’ve thought through some things so he can make a final decision or help guide me.  But while I’m in that thinking process, I’d like to have someone, a counterpart, who is a team member at my level.  Then we can bounce ideas off each other before taking them to our supervisor (versus me having internal conversations with myself…).  Plus, sometimes there are issues that I just don’t know who to ask, so maybe this person could be there to help me think through that as well.

Even though I am an independent learner and I love my space, I wish I had a more consistent teamwork component to my work.  It’s a nice change of pace from the usual “sitting at my desk typing away” pattern of work.  While we do have a weekly meeting now, I think it’d be nice to have more small meetings too, or even just informal ones.

Yelp

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , ,
05 April 2011
2

My latest obsession is Yelp (see my profile).  A few weeks ago, I decided that I want to become Yelp Elite.  To do so, I began to draft a bunch of reviews and started to take note of every place I went.  Soon enough, it became more fun to check in, upload pictures, and add new businesses than it was to write out dozens of reviews, so I got sidetracked.  My reviews are still slowly coming along and after I’ve done this for awhile and racked up some cred, I will apply and hopefully be part of the Elite ’11 crowd.

More recently I discovered the joy of reviewing the places I’ve been to while abroad!  The first thing I did was review the Eiffel Tower.  🙂  Interestingly, I’ve been to every country that Yelp is in currently: the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Austria, Ireland, and the Netherlands.  Sooo it is now my goal to figure out the names of the places I went to and review at least one place in each of those countries!  I’ve managed to do 5 of the 8 thus far and with some more detective work, I’m sure I’ll figure out at least one establishment in the remaining three countries.

I’ve been checking in to every place I go to now, and eagerly adding ones that are not already on the site.  My first addiction within the Yelping experience was being the first to review.  There’s something about getting that stamp of recognition that makes me happy!  However, after awhile, I discovered the fun in contributing to Yelp’s database of businesses.  Nowadays I am always on the lookout for a place that is not yet listed, such as the Sony Store that just opened up in the Century City mall.  Unfortunately, you don’t get recognition for adding a business, but if they did, I’d probably get a badge!  As a consolation, I made myself a list to keep track of them.

I still love to be first to review and I regret not being the first to review the Sony Store after I added it.  Granted, it had not yet open, but I was going to put up a placeholder about how excited I was to check out the new store.  You can always update your review, but once that coveted first spot is taken, there’s no getting it back.  Pity!  That’s ok though, between adding the business, putting up photos, and checking in there frequently, I get enough satisfaction.  After all, I’m officially the Duchess of the Sony Store (because I have the most check-ins).  I can be easily ousted since I’ve only gone three times, but hopefully I’ll swing by enough to keep my crown.  😛

I guess I enjoy Yelp because it’s a sort of game, with many ways to “win,” whether it be getting a badge, being crowned Duchess, or ultimately becoming Elite!  Real life is so much more fun when it feels like you’re in a game.

Loaded

laelene Posted in photo blog，Tags: , , ,
03 April 2011
0

cash box full of money

Money, money, money.

holding a huge wad of cash

It's allllll mine!

GMAT madness

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , ,
02 April 2011
0

I started taking a GMAT class recently and it has really motivated me and given me a positive outlook on my business school prospects.  Time and time again, we have been reminded that the GMAT is merely a standardized test, and as such can only be designed a certain way.  Questions are very structured and become predictable, and there is a finite number of question types that are used.  While this is encouraging news, studying for the GMAT is a challenge nonetheless, since we have to get the hang of the question types until recognizing them becomes second nature.

That’s the idea anyway.  Most people don’t have enough time to get to that point of zen.  Thankfully, I have chosen to get a head start and prepare well over a year before I plan on taking the test and applying for B-school.  I feel confident that with some hard work and plenty of practice, I can get a great score.  I did stumble a bit this week though, not finding the motivation to work on problems every night like I’m supposed to.  I started off strong last week with our first homework sets, but this week I am cramming more.  After class tomorrow I’ll need to pull myself together again and get back into student mode.

The nice thing is that I kind of enjoy doing practice problems!  They can get extremely convoluted and even brain-numbing, but taking some time off and coming back to the problem helps.  Of course, I still get my fair share of answers wrong, but that’s expected, especially so early on.  I’m learning to be more patient with the learning process and not expect to get it right all the time.  I figure if I don’t beat myself up so early on, I won’t get discouraged and I’ll gradually get the hang of taking my time to learn before I challenge myself with the time limit.

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